


The Sting of Life

by Darth_Videtur



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Darth Plagueis - James Luceno, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Gen, M/M, Psychological Drama, Revenge, Sequel Trilogy AU, Sith Shenanigans, Twisted, Unrequited Love, Unrequited Lust
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-01-23 00:32:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18538651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darth_Videtur/pseuds/Darth_Videtur
Summary: Hux is in hiding with Kylo and Snoke on one of their First Order base planets in the Unknown Regions after the devastating destruction of Starkiller Base. Deep in Snoke’s laboratories,something awaits its true destiny, and Hux gets a ringside seat to the madness as Chaos unfolds.Set after TFA, somewhat compliant to TLJ and the EpIX teaser trailer, but an AU.





	1. Into Exile We Must Go

The planet in the Unknown Regions on which Supreme Leader Snoke currently resided was so remote and so inhospitable that it carried no official name, only a number: G-H3567m. As one disgraced and seething Armitage Hux paced the long halls of the central command center, he renamed it in his own endlessly gloomy mind. Planet Despair.

A sense of stunned shock hung over everyone here. The air was suffocating. Supreme Leader Snoke was suffocating everyone else.

Kylo Ren was suffocating and sullen to boot, worse than usual. The overly emotional leader of the Knights of Ren moped constantly since the disaster on Starkiller Base. He set Hux’s blood to boiling whenever he opened that wide mouth of his. Which was entirely too often, Hux grumbled to himself on more than one occasion. He had contemplated asking the service droids to wire the man’s jaw shut and claim it had been broken.

The young general had been here once before, for several years as he was prepared for his purpose of leading the First Order’s armies to victory. Very few individuals knew the truth behind his existence, most supposing him to be the arrogant and entitled bastard son of the former Imperial Commandant Brendol Hux. Nothing could be further from the truth, though he had been raised under the elder Hux’s roof under just such a story.

Hux could count on both hands the number of beings who knew his background, who knew that he was not born of a poverty-stricken mother’s womb, the disgraced, disappointing broom-closet bastard of Brendol Hux, but of a cold nutrient tank. Bribery and quiet terror held living mouths shut. Even Kylo Ren did not know that Hux was a placeholder, one in a series of failed experiments. It hurt his pride to think of himself that way, so he shoved the thought aside and focused on his more recent failure: the destruction of Starkiller Base by a band of misfit rebels and troublemakers.

He wondered if the late Emperor had once ever felt such rage at the destruction of his Death Star.  He wondered if he truly shared anything in common with the great leader besides his own desire to rule the galaxy.

Now perhaps even that dream was gone. For what reason would Snoke continue to suffer his existence after this fiasco? His fists clenched in tight anger. This was the fault of Kylo Ren and his obsession over Luke Skywalker and the girl. The girl, not the droid. Typical of the fool, Hux fumed. Now Kylo lay in a medical bunk, his face scarred and deformed by the very girl he had wanted.

Justice, Hux mused, was sometimes a wonderful thing. Snoke had laughed at Kylo’s despair on their arrival to the planet and merely said that Kylo would be glad of his scars before the end.  _ They will remind you of what the Force really is, what it is capable of doing,  _ Snoke had rumbled, and Kylo Ren had nodded wearily from his bed. Hux often wondered what his own life might be like if he had been sensitive to the whims of the Force.

Something told him that he wouldn’t be standing here, in the middle of a hallway, asking himself why everything had fallen to pieces. Snoke did not appear terribly concerned, and of late he was hiding himself deep within the laboratory for planetary revolutions on end. When he surfaced and sensed Hux’s curiosity, he only smiled with that wide, twisted gash of a mouth and changed the subject.

Hux disliked inaction. Correction, he hated inaction. The galaxy was stuck. Yes, a near-mortal blow had been struck against the ineffectual New Republic, but so too to the First Order. Credits to build Starkiller Base did not grow on greel saplings. And the Resistance continued to float about causing mayhem and disorder wherever it landed.

Despicable.

His ears perked up as he heard a loud crash from deeper within the medical wing. Scuffing the toe of his shiny jackboot across the floor one last time, Hux turned to investigate. Most likely, Kylo was awake and raging at his hapless medics again.

“Your tantrums aren’t even surprising anymore, you know,” he said calmly from the door when he was proven right. Kylo stood in the center of the room, bandaged chest heaving and fist pressed tightly to his wounded side, his lightsaber sparking and roaring into the remains of a medical droid. Hux moved into the room with barely a glance at the floor. “Those are expensive.”

“Says the man who lost us our base,” Kylo snarled.

Hux forced the rage deep. Right now, he wouldn’t put it past Kylo to test that lightsaber on his innards, and he preferred to remain intact as long as possible. “That’s neither here nor there. These droids are the only things that patched you back together, and the Supreme Leader.”

He saw Kylo’s eyes darken at the mention of the tall humanoid. The young knight staggered back to his bed and settled on the edge with a low groan. “I failed him.”

Hux didn’t know why, but he said, “We both did.”

Kylo looked up sharply, a flash of vulnerable question in his eyes.

Hux slapped it down with a spark of his own significant anger and a cold sneer. “But yes, you failed more. If you hadn’t been so caught up in chasing the girl, the droid would have been ours. The last of the Jedi wiped out.”

For a moment, he thought the other might kill him, and even his tiny amount of Force awareness registered the growing tension. Kylo’s eyes burned out at him from under the bright red gash, new scarring.

“And if you hadn’t stirred the hornet’s nest by blowing up the Hosnian system, we would still have a base to stand on, General. If you hadn’t failed so miserably in training your soldiers up right, we wouldn’t have had a traitor among us.”

Hux couldn’t explain the trooper. That still made no sense to his befuddled mind, but he snarled, “My suggestion to attack was condoned by the Supreme Leader himself. Do you question his wisdom?”

That brought Kylo up sharply.  He stood, coming face to face with Hux, his breath erupting in hard puffs. “I will  _ never _ question him! But I will question  _ you  _ anytime I please.”

To his credit, Hux didn’t move, even as the other man’s breath curled over his pinched lips. He lowered his brow in a dark glower. How he couldn’t stand this pretentious brat! “Question me all you like, Kylo Ren,” he snarled. “But we share the responsibility for this, and we share the burden to restore the First Order in the wake of this disaster up until the Supreme Leader sees fit to replace us.”

“It’s all about duty with you, isn’t it?”

He hated the derision in that deep voice, the way Kylo taunted him so effortlessly. “At least I don’t let personal feelings get in the way of things.”

Kylo shot back, “Do you even have personal feelings? Or are you just a stamp in a uniform? Like all those other faceless, useless officers you trained in simulation rooms? Like those children I’ve heard so little about?”

Hux flinched. Kylo’s words, spoken in heat, struck far too close to home for comfort. “I do what I have to do,” he said, voice going quiet with his anger.  

The knight stopped and looked away down his long nose. “We all do,” he muttered, and it was like the fire had died in him. He sank down to sit on the edge of the cot and hung his bandaged head low. Hux stared down, surprised by the transformation and obvious display of weakness. Was this some sort of trick?

“He said… he said the strategy had to be changed,” Kylo looked down into his folded hands. “Has he shared that strategy with you, General?”

Hux swallowed. “Not yet. The Supreme Leader works on his own time table, you know that.”

“I do. More than you will ever know.”

The First Order commander rankled at the condescension in Kylo’s sigh. “Do _you_ know?” he demanded. Kylo didn’t answer, easing himself back onto the long bed and turning his back to the general with a low growl of agitated pain. The conversation was over. Hux stared down at the faint scars peeking out from under the bacta-infused bandages.  _ He doesn’t know either. But… Snoke shares so much with him. What is happening? _

Not just the strategy was changing. Everything was changing.

A storm was coming. The game board had shifted.


	2. Gates Breaking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux gets a ringside seat to Snoke's secretive plans, and is more than a little worried for his own safety as a result. Snoke does horrible Snokish things.

Hux stared at the long limbs slippery with viscous fluid from the birthing tank. They were his limbs, he realized numbly. Or like his. So like his that he could barely breathe. Long, lean, pale. More slender. Untested. The tight collar of his uniform strangled him, twisting around his throat and mocking his effort to speak.

Long fingers flexed on the thin gurney, near twins to the fingers curling tight in his gloves. The almost translucent skin shivered in the cool atmosphere, seeking something.

Hux moved without thinking, because he knew what the other wanted, what the other needed. The general’s hand tugged free of the soft gloves and pressed upon the narrow chest, which was cold as ice to the touch.

Hux trembled. He must have felt like this once. They all did. But he had been only a babe when his awakening occurred. Pools of warmth eddied from his fingertips and sank deep into atrophied muscle. This clone’s age had not been artificially advanced, just as Hux had been raised like a normal -  _ bastard -  _ child, though this one had remained deep in Snoke’s darkest laboratories. It was several years younger than himself, the muscle tone sleek and untried, still like a boy’s or a newly made young man.

Fascinated, he moved his hand up over the arched throat, curving his fingers along the jawline and pausing on the cleft chin. Virgin lips that had never spoken twitched reflexively when he brushed a finger across them. They were like Hux’s lips, but they were not his, they were thinner and more drawn. He would certainly never dare to touch them once they belonged to  _ him _ .

And they would shortly belong to him, the one who started everything. And when the master took root in the powerful shell, where would Hux stand then? Why had he, of all beings, been called down here to witness.... whatever this was. 

“Will this work?” he whispered, not even sure what he meant.

Behind him, Snoke shifted creakily on his chair. “Do you doubt our success, General?”

“Never, Supreme Leader,” Hux said, his throat drying up. “It’s just that none have worked before.”

“None have ever matched the original so closely before,” Snoke said, and the meaning in his words, at least, was perfectly clear.

Hux knew he was a disappointment to the Supreme Leader. He would never wield the Force like that insufferable Kylo Ren. He might feel it distantly, might recognize its call, but he was worthless. Overmutated, undermutated, it didn’t matter anymore. And any time now, he still fully expected to die for the loss of Starkiller Base. That was not a battle that could ever be forgiven, and it had happened on his watch. His responsibility. Hundreds and thousands of his own men, dead because of him.

Loathsome Resistance.

He looked at the still figure on the table. He would be disappointed as well once he returned. If it could happen.

Snoke watched Hux for a long moment, as though he could see the human’s thoughts, and a cold smile appeared in his voice. “He is pleasing to behold, isn’t he?”

Hux flushed and jerked his hand away from the clone. “If you say so, Supreme Leader.”

Snoke laughed, the sound brutal and raw in the sterile room. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I have always enjoyed the sight of him, and this is very like his original form. Nigh indistinguishable, in fact. It was my greatest weakness long ago. I wonder if he remembers anything of what I taught him.”

“Taught him, Supreme Leader?” Hux kept his tone evenly respectful and his expression completely neutral. Snoke’s past was a mystery to all but the alien. Snippets of his previous life surfaced here and there, a patchwork quilt of undefinable meaning. All Hux knew was that Snoke had some connection to the Emperor despite coming from the Unknown Regions, and now he was understanding that the connection might have gone deeper than anyone expected. 

The alien’s small eyes narrowed further. “Yes,” he purred in gravelly delight. “I taught him many things, power, pain… even pleasure.”

Hux could almost sense the perverse delight oozing from the tall twisted humanoid, with the faintest of traces he could recognize in the Force. He shifted uneasily, forcing his disgust low. This was the Emperor they were speaking of. The man who ended the Jedi Order and reorganized the galaxy to order and glory. The man who Hux revered. And now was Snoke saying…?

Snoke laughed harshly. “I went by another name then. And he did not suffer my teachings endlessly. I was so proud of him, so _ angry _ with him the day he turned against me. But I cannot truly blame him for that; it was my fault for underestimating him. He is a force of nature; it is in his very blood to devour and destroy. Ultimately, he even consumed himself, which is why I intend to keep him on a tighter leash this time.”

Hux looked down at the pale body. Everything he ever understood about the Emperor suggested that the man would not suffer a leash. What hold could Snoke possibly wield over the last of the great Sith Lords?

Snoke leaned forward with his gash of a grin. “You practically worship the ground he walked on, General, don’t you? Well, he’ll be with us presently, and you can see his magnificence for yourself. Right now, he is more myth to you than man.” He paused, sneering. “He has quite an adjustment coming as well.”

Hux waited politely.

Snoke chuckled, a ghastly sound. “He is coming from the Netherworld, General.  Chaos. The formless given form, the shapeless given a single shell. He won’t be normal, at least not at first. He will need time to adjust to being so… limited again.”

Suppressing a shudder, Hux asked, “Do we have all we require to handle the situation, Supreme Leader?”

Snoke waved a long, spindly hand. “I have everything I need, General. Do you see this?” He lifted his other hand, a circular band of silvery metal, blinking with half a dozen deep red lights, lying across his palm. Deep archaic runes etched into the silver glowed with that same bloody sheen. 

Hux’s eyes widened. He had seen one of them on Kylo Ren many years ago, when Snoke was training him. “Is that…?”

Snoke chuckled. “A Force inhibitor collar. Infused with the power of true Sith alchemy. Yes. In the short time before he regains his full ability to focus in the mortal plane, he will be weakened. With this, my hold over him will be absolute, and all of you will be safe.” He sighed. “At least, until he comes to his senses. I hope his time as ruler taught him the wisdom I failed to instill.”

Hux held his tongue. The Supreme Leader was wise, as Kylo Ren often reminded him, but this venture screamed danger more than anything else. How could Snoke be so certain that the Emperor would submit, if the clone even worked? How would any of them survive if this actually worked? “...Yes, Supreme Leader,” he finally offered when the tall humanoid appeared to be waiting for his reply.

The air in the room changed, the pressure building around his ears. He looked a question at Snoke and saw the tall humanoid straighten in his seat.

Snoke’s voice crackled with pleasure. “Leave us, General. He will not want you here for the next phase of the transfer.”

Hux bowed deeply and moved to the door. He tried not to feel like he was fleeing. The temperature in the room began dropping, unreal in the darkness that seeped from every corner of the brightly lit room.The air itself changed, a choking oppressive slog. 

When he passed the door, Hux palmed it shut, but not before a raw scream tore from an unused throat.

He froze.

The voice was like and unlike his own, if it were crying out in agony. Another scream, this time filled with hatred and shadows and abject fear. He heard Snoke rising to his feet and moving across the room in his stumping gait, but Hux did not turn around. He focused on the sound.

_ Stop it. _

A crash sounded from within, the scarred humanoid saying something that was lost in another guttural, hair-raising shriek from the other occupant. When something slammed up against the door, Hux turned in startled reflex.

His own face stared back at him through the observation panel, different but the same, impossibly pale and wan, eyes blown wide and blazing yellow like twin suns, no pupils to be seen, saliva strung from the thin mouth that bared its teeth at him through the transparisteel. An animal… Hux stepped away from the door, frightened and pulling on his years of military discipline to keep from fleeing like a coward. He almost ran anyway.  _ But what would Ren say? What will he  _ say?    

The clone’s thin hands were claws, scrabbling at the door, uncoordinated and clumsy and weak, falling away suddenly as the whole body went rigid in a seizure. The being disappeared from sight. Hux could breathe again, but barely.

The lights in the room flickered, and the Force whispered across his senses. Even in his diluted state, Hux could feel the utter blackness that seeped from the room, casting about for a place to anchor. It touched his skin like a hot iron and disappeared, and he heard Snoke say something in a strange tongue. Hux shivered; the feeling was both death and life, and somehow the life felt more unnatural.

Someone in the room moved, and a scream in the Force followed. Hux’s mind writhed under the onslaught – pain, hate, confusion, the utter wildness of an animal trapped and confined.  

Pleasure too, but it was not emanating from the new presence. It was coming from Snoke. Hux stepped closer to the door, uncertain of what he might see and quite certain that he didn’t want to see it. But something - damned curiosity or the Force, he didn’t know - kept him creeping up until he was able to peer in through the observation window.

The clone’s body lay pale and splayed on the cold floor, limbs shaking sporadically. Snoke knelt at his side, eyes closed and large hands pressed against the thin chest and belly, almost as though he were trying to hold something in, something boiling and shaking every inch of the fragile body in his grip. The clone’s mouth opened in a feral snarl. Snoke replied, inaudible. Hux stared, fascinated, as the shaking slowly lessened and the white hot rage cooled.

The moment may have lasted minutes or hours, Hux didn’t know. He watched as the clone finally lay still beneath the Supreme Leader’s hands. But this wasn’t just a clone anymore, he realized. This was Him, impossibly returned from the world beyond life. 

The Force proclaimed it. 

The general saw Snoke smile and open his eyes, and Hux’s eyes widened when the alien’s large hand slid down the smooth belly to intimately caress the limp shaft between the trembling legs.

Hux jerked his eyes and head away, but not before he saw the clone’s narrow face contort in rage and Snoke lean down and possessively cover the thin lips with his own. The collar slid around the taut throat, and Hux swore he could hear it clicking into place even through the thick laboratory walls. 

The Force screamed in despair.

Hux fled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Oh boy, the cat's out of the bag now, how will the galaxy recover from this one?   
> 2\. SomeOne is NOT happy about his current circumstances. He's also very confused and grouchy after being dragged back from Chaos. He's gonna be even madder when he finds out what they did to his Empire.   
> 3\. Hux is in trouble!   
> 4\. Still trying to get back in the mindframe of writing! Apologies for any typos or errors or things like that, let me know what you guys think!


	3. Who Is Wise Again?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux is getting more bad feelings about this as things begin to develop. And then there's Kylo Ren. What's he supposed to do with him?

“He isn’t to know?” Hux stared at Snoke, dumbfounded for the second standard day in a row. “Supreme Leader, Kylo Ren is, unfortunately, an integral part of the First Order. A change in the plans of this significance seems like it should -” he stopped when Snoke raised a crooked hand for silence. 

 

The alien peered down at him from his throne, his twisted frame hunched in on itself. “This… is new, General. I was not aware you held such concern for Lord Ren’s involvement with the First Order.” 

 

“I don’t,” Hux protested and felt his face redden. “I’m merely suggesting that to keep Ren completely in the dark regarding the return of, ah…” He paused, even though no one else stood in the large, black marbled room. “He will not accept this peacefully if he should discover the truth on his own.” 

 

“Kylo Ren…” Snoke leaned back and steepled his fingers. He sighed deeply. “Kylo Ren failed me, General Hux. As  _ you _ failed me. There has only ever been one to exceed my expectations, and he will do so again, I’m certain of it.” One clawed hand clenched into a tight fist on the armrest. “When we do it  _ right _ this time _. _ ” 

 

_ Right this time?  _ Hux fought down the urge to shudder.  

 

“I allowed him too much leeway before. Now he will require retraining... reconditioning.” Snoke sighed again. “It is my fault, for not guiding him all the way to parity. The failures of an Apprentice reflect back on the Master, justly so. I should have sensed his discontent and adjusted our plans accordingly. Had I been able to put him back in line, we could have prevented… all of this.” 

 

Snoke gestured lazily at their surroundings, and though his words might have indicated regret, he displayed no anxiety in his tones. He remained as Hux had always known him, unflappable and nearly disinterested. Save for that one time when Ren had ruined almost everything through his stupidity over the  _ girl _ , Supreme Leader Snoke kept most of the stronger emotions he felt deeply buried in front of his underlings.  

 

Until the Emperor had returned. Hux had the feeling this was going to change everything. 

 

“Supreme Leader,” Hux started again, uncertain. “How will we explain his presence to Ren if he doesn’t know the truth? Hiding the Emp - hiding  _ him _ would be - ”   

 

“Impossible? Yes, it would,” Snoke’s wide mouth parted in a gash of a smile. “Ren will learn the truth when the time is right, and not a moment before. You see, our young Master of the Knights of Ren is conflicted, General Hux. Light and Dark call to him in nearly equal measure. As he stands now, even with the murder of his father, he is weak and certainly no Sith, not as my true apprentice is. I have tested Ren with tales of Light and Dark intermingling, and he has fallen each time so far. I have plans for Kylo Ren, General Hux, but those remain to be seen.”

 

He stood from his throne and stepped down the dais, shuffling and awkward. “He will be informed that I have a special guest from the Unknown Regions, a most-important guest who is not to be harmed under any circumstances. I am certain once Kylo Ren discovers the purpose of the collar, he will become convinced that I am training his replacement.” 

 

Hux stepped back and off to the right, deferential and worried. “Supreme Leader, could he not react poorly to that and attempt something foolish?” This was Kylo Ren they were speaking of, after all. 

 

Snoke’s hideous grin widened. “I am certainly counting on it, General. Now, come with me.” 

 

Stepping past the much smaller human, Snoke ambled down the long dark hallway, his slippers shuffling along the obsidian surface with the same rasp of his harsh breathing. Hux turned and fell into step beside him, mind awash with the words. How could Snoke be counting on the possible betrayal of Kylo Ren? Did he want such a disaster, and if so, why? What benefit could come of Ren turning on his Master in a jealous rage?

 

It made no sense. Nothing did, anymore. 

 

They passed under the heavy arch of Snoke’s throneroom and out into the main hall of the ancient, partially crumbling palace. Once home to a hardy race of primitive reptilian warriors, the palace swiftly converted to a main base of the First Order once the fleet had arrived. Lizards with spears and shields stood little chance against blasters and cannon fire, Hux thought with a small sneer, remembering their pitiful resistance when he had been but a cowering boy watching from behind his father’s trousers as Phasma brutally decapitated their hissing, fork-tongued king. 

 

Upon Snoke’s arrival to the planet, he’d instantly gravitated to the dark palace and the endless labyrinth of tunnels far beneath G-H3567m’s surface, tunnels that became the grounds of his darkest experiments. Hux thought the place suited him, though of course he never suggested any such thing.     

 

Unlike Kylo Ren, he possessed a healthy sense of self-preservation.  

 

_ Why did you stay with the First Order, then, after Starkiller Base was destroyed?  _

 

There was simply no other place for one like him. He shook the traitorous thought away when Snoke turned aside down a smaller hallway and then entered a room on the right, passing between two of his Praetorian guards. Sparing the two hulking figures only a glance, Hux stepped in after his leader and looked around curiously. The room gleamed with imported tools, technology, and dozens of blinking lights. A makeshift medical bay, Hux realized.  

 

He cast a look at the tall humanoid, who shuffled further in and waved the lights up. Hux stopped in his tracks. 

 

The only other occupant of the room lay on his back on a medical gurney in the room’s center, surrounded by the equipment and flashing readouts. Hux spotted two medical droids lurking near the back, one of them… smoking?... from a leak in one appendage. Snoke followed his gaze and chuckled. 

 

“He wields surgical tools with as much skill as a lightsaber, evidently. It is good to know his memories and instincts of fighting are still present.” 

 

Hux stepped up to the gurney, fascinated despite the fear blooming deep in his belly. It was like approaching a sleeping narglatch, he thought. Then he realized with a shock that the narglatch was  _ not  _ asleep. 

 

Palpatine, clad now in a dark silk high-collared tunic and trousers, belt, and boots, stared up at the room’s black ceiling, his eyes bright yellow and fixed, as wide as Hux had ever seen a human’s eyes.  _ He still looks like a wild animal…  _ Hux’s eyes traveled down over his arms and legs and saw that each one was restricted by tight cuffs. He could see the tension in each limb, the way they fought the restraints, rendered powerless. Slender fingers alternately clenched into fists and scrabbled at the smooth metal gurney. The soft scratching echoed in the near-silent room.    

 

More than anything else, the Force swirled around the Emperor so strongly that even Hux could feel it like a shock of cold water to the face. The collar locked around Palpatine’s neck pulsed with steady red light. Snoke did not feel like this. Not even Kylo Ren felt like this. He reached out to touch the pale skin before remembering himself at the last moment and snatching his gloved hand back. This was no longer a mindless clone brother. 

 

Yet Palpatine reacted at though he had been touched. He screamed, the shrill sound cutting the air, back arching against the cold gurney, teeth bared and sharp. The collar flashed faster, a soft insistent beep emitting before the Sith’s slender body collapsed back down. The hands resumed their sporadic clenching. 

 

Hux stepped back immediately, face going pale with the twist of alarm in his chest. “Supreme Leader!” 

 

“Relax, General. I’ve had him bound to the gurney for nearly twelve hours already,” Snoke mused, coming up in his halting, off-balance gait to stand with Hux. He peered down at his now-quiet patient. 

 

_ His victim…. Like the rest of us.  _ Hux prayed the old humanoid had not been able to catch his erroneous thought. 

 

“Each time we attempted a release, he flew into an inarticulate wrath and made efforts to escape. He believes he is still in Chaos, and my presence, unfortunately, does nothing to dissuade him of that fact. He requires something… different. I believe I may have found the answer with you.” 

 

Hux swallowed. He stared down at the thin figure, at the fragile wrists bound tightly to the cold metal of the medical gurney. “How might I be of service, Supreme Leader?” 

 

“Speak to him,” Snoke urged. His pale eyes flashed with emotion that Hux didn’t dare try to interpret. “You were never in his life, but you are of him, however little it may be. It might be enough of a jarring moment to pull him up.” 

 

“Ah…” Hux cleared his throat and looked down again.   

 

There was life in those fiery eyes, life he couldn’t even begin to understand, much less the intelligent gleam of unfocused, disbelieving hatred he found there amidst the animal confusion. Hux hesitated, then leaned forward. 

 

“My lord…” he whispered. The reverence he had always felt for this man, the fear, it mingled together and cracked his voice on the title. 

 

Yellow eyes flicked right, then left, seeking out the speaker. They widened and narrowed and widened again, huge in the pale face. 

 

“I’m here,” Hux said. He did reach out then, not knowing what else he could do, afraid the screaming would begin again, and was relieved when his hand settled on the smooth silks without an explosion of rage. 

 

Palpatine’s searing gaze locked onto him at last, and Hux shivered at the blossoming awareness in the ochre depths of it. Hux was prey before the predator, a skittermouse challenging a nexu. The strength locked behind that collar wanted to rip him into shreds, he knew it without knowing, saw it without seeing. He recognized the devouring rage. 

 

“Welcome back, my lord,” he said before his courage could abandon him completely. 

 

Silence. Even Snoke did not breathe.  

 

The fire slid from Hux to the Supreme Leader. 

 

Then, low, parched, halting,  _ pained _ : “You did it…. You  _ bastard _ .” 

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

Hux strode down the hallway toward his quarters, greatcloak pulled tightly around his shoulders, mind tumbling with the horror and awe of what he had just witnessed. Palpatine, Emperor of the Galaxy, returned from the dead and enraged about it. Once Snoke realized that Hux had finally broken Palpatine’s tenuous grip on chaos and reason had been restored to the ruler’s shattered mind, he ushered the general out of the room with barely a word, saying only that there was much to do and reminding him to say nothing to Kylo Ren of what he had seen. 

 

Hux had been more than happy to depart. Perhaps the collar blocked less than it should, or perhaps there was some blood connection as Snoke had implied, but he felt sick to his stomach standing so close to the despair and rage rolling off Palpatine’s presence. And all of it directed squarely at Snoke the moment the Sith had seen him…  

 

So engrossed in his memories as he was, Hux didn’t notice the hulking dark figure standing in his path until large hands reached out to stop him from a hard collision. 

 

“General Hux,” Kylo Ren sneered, looking down at the shorter man. He breathed heavily still, the bandages visible around the edges of his medically modified dark robes. “Have you finally lost your common sense?”   

 

Hux drew himself up indignantly and shook the hands away. “Lord Ren,” he replied, his own lip turning up. “I see you finally made use of the bacta enough to be wandering about underfoot again. Unfortunately.” 

 

Kylo stared at him. 

 

Hux kept sneering, at a loss for what else to do and not willing to show his hand. He hated the fact that Ren was here, after everything he had seen. After what Snoke had told him. The last thing he needed was being seen as weak in front of this overgrown manchild. He let his sharp tongue take over. “I should let you return for your mind, except that you lost it along with Starkiller Base, I’m afraid.” He made to step around the powerful knight and continue down the hallway to his quarters. 

 

A massive hand landed hard on his shoulder and brought him to a sharp halt. 

 

“Unhand me at once,” Hux snapped. 

 

“No,” Ren glowered.   

 

Hux’s jaw dropped. “I’m not playing - ” 

 

“You’re different.” 

 

Hux blinked. “What?”  _ I was only mostly jesting about his mind, truly...  _

 

Kylo Ren leaned in, looking into his face with startling intensity. “Not you…. But something about you…” 

 

Hux tensed. The air between them, never comfortable, now felt charged. The way Ren stared at him as though he had never seen him before, the way those eyes sought to see into him… He didn’t like it at all. “There is  _ nothing  _ different about me, except that perhaps my patience for your insanity is running low, Lord Ren. Let me pass.” 

 

“You’ve spoken with the Supreme Leader.” 

 

It was not a question. Hux felt the stirrings of inane pleasure at the clear jealousy in Kylo Ren’s voice. “Yes, I have,” he purred dangerously. “And I’ve been expressly forbidden to talk about it with  _ you.”  _

 

That hit home, Hux saw gleefully. Ren released him as though his hand were burning and straightened back up. 

 

“He told you that?” 

 

“Well, you can hardly blame him, can you?” Hux moved around him, but he couldn’t resist turning for one more good jab. “After all, the Supreme Leader is wise.” 

  
He strode away down the hall before Kylo Ren could respond. Strangely, the only thought he had was:  _ At least, I thought he was.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Apologies for any mistakes. I’m forcing myself to play kind of loose with this story in an effort to get my brain going on my more beloved fics from earlier. But I’m starting to have a lot of fun with the potential of this what-if. :)   
> 2\. Poor Palpatine. He got eternal life again, but at the hands of the one he most hates. Talk about a bitter pill to swallow.  
> 3\. I’d love to hear what you guys think of it so far, or what you think could happen, etc. :)


	4. Dancing Together Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two Sith Lords face off in a bitter conversation that grows progressively more volatile, and Kylo Ren ruminates about his uncertain future.
> 
> Warning: there is both mental and physical assault in this chapter. Darth Plagueis is not a nice Sith.

_ Pain…. _

 

All he could remember. 

 

Since the beginning of time, pain existed, and until he laid eyes on the twisted mockery of himself quivering beside the monster, it was all he ever knew. 

 

The worlds still reeling, he barely noticed when Plagueis sent the mistake away, barely noticed when the broken giant pulled a chair up alongside his gurney and simply sat, without another word.

 

Plagueis had spoken words before, when existence coalesced into this singular form once more, gloating, horrible taunts and grasping fingers, and more, and then -  

 

Pain, and  _ rage _ . 

 

Now, his memories - once so fractured to render him mad if he dwelled there - were coming back, a flood of sensation and knowledge of who he had been. Not some spectre consigned to Chaos, not some endless loop of discorporated entity. 

 

_Palpatine_ … _Sidious_ … _but_ _who are you now, when Chaos itself spits you back?_

 

He laughed, a guttural, harsh sound, gasped for air and words. Finally they came to him, though they took what little strength he had to force out. “S-Senator Valine told me once, before I dissolved that wretched assembly, that hell wouldn’t take me.” 

 

Plageuis’s damned soul stared out from Snoke’s twisted face, but he did not speak. Palpatine wanted to strangle him with his new hands until he turned blue. He wanted to  _ kill _ him again, and never stop.  

 

Instead, his thin lips twitched in a rabid, exhausted smile. “I didn’t even have the man executed for his impertinence, it amused me so.” 

 

“Is it so amusing now, Lord Sidious?” 

 

“Entirely,” he snarled as the humanoid’s hand came down over his arm. “I appreciate a cosmic joke as much as the next... “ he coughed and bit his tongue, unused to the act of talking again. Using a mouth again. Contained, he was so  _ contained _ now… frustration surged.  _ It wasn’t time yet…  _

 

“You tried to kill me,” Plagueis’s voice remained quiet. “But I raised you up.” 

 

“Tried?” Palpatine wrestled his tongue into submission at last. His mind, still fractured and tender, attempted not to think about the raising, and  _ why. _ “That was no try, Plagueis. I  _ killed  _ you. I felt it.” 

 

“Ah, my Apprentice,” long fingers crept up his arm. “You did not quite succeed, fortunately for me. Had you managed to fully kill me, I would not be here now, raising you from true death.” 

 

“More secrets?” Palpatine had no energy to draw his arm away, not anymore, the adrenaline of the moment draining from him at last. He glared up, loathing his vulnerability to this creature. “Or is it more trials, Plagueis?” 

 

He felt a disgusting, disquieting wave of pride enter the Force. 

 

“Trials no more, Lord Sidious. You are truly a Sith Lord, perhaps now greater than myself even. What trial is greater than walking back from death itself? I guided your spirit, but you remained yourself in a place where all is made to utter nothingness…” Plagueis tilted his grotesque head to one side. “That first drew me to you, to imagine such sheer  _ willpower  _ in the service of the Sith Order.” 

 

“I - I was to be your tool, is that it?”

 

The challenge rang between them. Ridiculous, Palpatine knew, for he was weak as a tuskcat cub. His limbs foreign and tightly bound, his thin chest struggling to remember how oxygen needed to fill the lumps of young lung within. He could not help but fire the words anyway, trembling and hating and trapped. His hate burned stronger than his fear, for what was left to fear when you lived through Chaos itself? 

 

“Far more.” 

 

Plagueis stood and released his arm, and Palpatine hated the sickening relief that flooded his new body when he did. The humanoid paced the small medical room. Palpatine moved his eyes cautiously to the sides to take in his surroundings. It took a moment to focus: droids, a reinforced door, no doubt armed guards beyond, and the cursed closeness of the Force without being able to access it, thanks to the constricting collar fast bound around his throat. 

 

He had known, the minute he returned, even mad and incoherent, that something very wrong had occurred. Even in his darkest moments, Sidious never thought to deny other creatures the Force. Even with his captive Jedi that he toyed with shortly after Order 66, it did not occur to him. Or perhaps it did, and he only thought they would die from it, like taking the oxygen, nitrogen, or water from their lungs, depending on the species. 

 

How fitting that now he discovered, one did not die from being cut off from the Force. 

 

One simply suffered. 

 

He supposed the Universe in its inexplicable sense of arbitrary justice, had determined his suffering in Chaos to be inadequate, and thus Snoke’s face hiding Plagueis’s pleasure had been his first sight upon regaining his awareness. His first sensation? That collar sliding around his throat and clicking away everything that mattered. No amount of rage had undone it. His first touch? His former master’s loathsome hands… 

 

“In order to remain bound to the worlds of the living, Sith Lords must anchor their souls in something here, something still connected to the flow of the Force around us,” Plagueis finally said. “Until you. You truly died. Your blackened soul was all that was left.” He turned slowly, his withered shell tottering as though it might fall at any moment. Palpatine’s thin lips writhed back from his teeth. 

 

“And somehow, my  _ old  _ master, I’m in better shape than you.” 

  
“Yes. Hence,” he waved a long, crooked hand, “the precautions I must take until you come to your reason, Lord Sidious.” 

 

“The collar,” Palpatine spat through gritted teeth. 

 

“The collar,” Plagueis nodded, almost sadly. If he noticed Palpatine’s refusal to use his title or any other form of respect, he gave no outward sign. “Much has changed in your absence, Lord Sidious. Although chaos has sown its seeds beyond the afterlife, the galaxy is once again ripe for the ordering hand. Together, you and I will see the rise of the Sith Empire.” 

 

Palpatine nearly laughed, but Plagueis limped close, and this time, those old eyes burned with determination. The weird crawling edge of their old bond flared with ugly intent. Palpatine didn’t necessarily want to be sent right back to Chaos for ill-timed impertinence, though this was hardly any better.  _ Yet.  _ He waited, his own eyes flaring with hate. 

 

“Together, Lord Sidious,” Plagueis repeated with a philosophical sigh. “We’ll do it the _ right _ way this time. I was too lenient before, I let you think I was unneeded, and look where that got you.” His expression twisted and darkened. “Perhaps I failed  _ you.  _ I searched the galaxy for someone better, but all have failed me. I’m certain you won’t fail a second time, especially not once you are properly chastened.” 

 

Dark shadows hissed along the edges of his thoughts, Plagueis probing at him. His mind still fractured and recovering from Chaos, and with the collar tight against his throat, Palpatine could not raise the shields needed to stop him. He shuddered as the other poured his essence over him, filling every crack and sliding in deep. His hands clenched in the restraints. Staining, stinking oil… writhing, sickening pleasure dripping down… old familiar laughter. 

 

“No…” 

 

He watched in confused dismay as Plagueis took his essence in the Force and thinned it and sifted through each shadowy corner. Pain like no Force lightning could bring surged down through his trembling frame. His face bloodless, Palpatine fought him for every little twitch and give, but it was not enough. Plagueis tore through him. He rifled through the horrifying memories of Chaos and smiled at the realization that even there, Plagueis had been with his Apprentice in every conceivable way. 

 

“I - I never stopped hating you,” Palpatine growled.  _ I never will.  _

 

In reply, Plagueis only reached deeper until he looked upon that very hatred, a writhing mass of shadows and flame deep in the core of his former apprentice. He smiled down. 

 

“I made you so powerful, so…  _ beautiful _ … and you broke yourself for the love of a false destiny. For a Chosen One who turned his back on you for an empty-headed boy.” 

 

Palpatine, robbed of the Force and his ability to protect even his thoughts from the other Sith, lifted his head and spat directly in Plagueis’s looming face. 

 

An arthritic hand shot out and clenched around his throat, just above the dark collar. Palpatine gasped as the air disappeared, his back arching on the gurney, slender fingers digging like claws into the metal. Plagueis held him there until his vision began to blacken around the edges, then released him at last. 

 

Slowly, deliberately, the old Sith raised his hand to his cheek and wiped the spittle away. He gazed down, a disturbing fondness flickering into the bright blue eyes. “I worried - in vain, clearly - that your spirit might be broken by Chaos. I  _ will  _ reforge you into who you were meant to be, Lord Sidious, I promise.” A sly smile appeared. “But that will require… undoing… a few things first.” 

 

His large, gnarled hand moved to the ties of the dark tunic and unlooped them with clear, slow intent. 

 

Palpatine growled, unable to do anything more. He felt the silky material slip from his body to pool at his sides, his pale, unblemished skin shivering from the cool recycled air, and that longing gaze he saw in every nightmare.  _ Anything but this again…  _ A small part of him asked if he had not suffered enough, but the Force, the universe, none of it, ever cared to take that into consideration.  

 

Cold fingers trailed over his exposed ribs, pressed lightly and drifted down to the shallow dip of his flat stomach. He flinched, growled louder, and tugged against the restraints. The memories of Chaos pressed at his thoughts - he was there again, but he  _ wasn’t _ \- and he swallowed a raging whimper. 

 

Plagueis paused, then dragged Snoke’s twisted fingers to the waistband of the dark trousers. “You would not comprehend how much I wanted to take you, when you first came back to me, Lord Sidious. You were reborn, all tender youth and fire again in the Force, but now… now you’ve woken to me, too.” 

 

“I didn’t submit to you the first time, old man,” Palpatine snarled to hide the fear soaring up his throat. He was Sith, he was  _ master _ , he did not  _ fear…  _  “What makes you think this will be any different?” 

 

“I took your innocence the first time,” Plagueis nodded. “This time, I will also taste your essence. This body I have inhabited is skilled in the ways of the mind, and yours is now laid bare to me. Though perhaps this form is not as physically impressive as I once was.”

 

He jerked the dark trousers down the human’s narrow hips. A cold smile floated up and pulled at the despair in Palpatine’s chest when he saw it.   

 

“But I believe it will serve my purpose well enough.”  

 

Palpatine did not stop fighting, not even when all was lost.  

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

Kylo Ren jerked upright on his mattress, the wounds flaring with bright, hideous pain as the Force around him twisted with malevolent glee. “Master?” he whispered into the stillness of the room. 

 

No answer. Snoke was not here, though for a moment, his presence in the Bond had leapt with dark joy. When Ren tried to visit him in his master's quarters, the guards curtly informed him that Snoke was not available, and would not be so for the foreseeable future. Yet he had been there to meet with Hux only moments before, according to the general. 

 

What was there to be joyful about, Ren wondered, sinking back against the headboard and cursing his sudden movements, as they tugged at the still-tender wounds. Their base lost, their Order in hiding, licking its wounds, the arrival of  _ that girl _ , and Luke Skywalker still hidden away, tauntingly out of reach. 

 

Hux glowering around the base with his irritating snarl and condescending smirk, as if he wanted to tell Kylo ‘ _ I was right about the girl _ ,’ and Ren wanting to snap that pale neck in its high military collar or sink his teeth into it or… 

 

He jerked his darkening thoughts back into line. It must be the new wellspring of Darkness around him right now. He didn’t think of kissing Hux’s neck until the general moaned under him. He didn’t think about how that pale skin felt against his calloused hands, or how that red hair might string through his tightening fingers. He hated the man’s lonely, miserable guts! Hux lost Starkiller Base and the First Order’s best chance for galactic domination, no matter how many times Ren’s own conscience whispered that he himself had gotten too distracted by the girl and his father. 

 

His father… Ren’s hands clenched into tight fists against his bed. 

 

“He’s dead. He’s dead, and I killed him. I’ve chosen the darkness,” he told the empty room.  _ As dead as Ben Solo is.  _ His master would have no choice but to accept him now and complete his training. Always before Snoke held him back, questioning his readiness, his commitment. Always Snoke refused to train him past a certain point. 

 

What light was left in Ren now? What excuse could Snoke possibly design to keep him from his destiny again?

 

“I’m ready,” he whispered, and trembled when it felt like the Dark only laughed in reply. It made him think of the way Hux had looked at him in the hallway, almost like the man had seen a Force ghost. Nothing frustrated Ren like being left out of important matters, and he got the distinct impression he was missing something critical. 

 

_Something_ was very, very wrong. 

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Well, I'm still here and spinning endless fic ideas to myself! :) I hope everyone's having a great 2019, and I hope that by forcing myself to post this, I'll update all my stories more regularly!   
> 2\. The plot and some chapters were written before TLJ released, but after that laugh in the teaser trailer, I'm hoping for the best again!   
> 3\. I want to give Hux some of his villain dignity back to him, too. Poor guy in TLJ, a laughingstock.  
> 4\. Hope you folks enjoy my little foray into the Sequel era.


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